Apple discontinues HomePod to focus on HomePod mini

I meant to post about this before now, but last Friday, TechCrunch reported that Apple was discontinuing the larger HomePod in favor of focusing on the HomePod mini.

The original HomePod is available "while supplies last", however as of this writing you can still get an original HomePod in white from Apple, and the space gray model is sold out. You still might be able to get one from a third-party retailer.

I cannot say that I am surprised by this move. There has not been any hardware update to the HomePod since its introduction in 2017 and its release in February of 2018. After it was released, I wrote a couple of different reviews about the HomePod.

The original HomePod produces great sound, and I am somewhat sad that they are not doing any updates to the product because the HomePod produces much better sound than the HomePod mini. At the same time, I get needing to focus on one HomePod product and the HomePod mini being the focus makes sense. Given how many people are price conscious, you can get three HomePod minis for the price of one HomePod, and therefore creating a stereo pair of HomePod minis is still cheaper, even with AppleCare+ and tax included.

If Apple is going to focus on the HomePod mini, I hope they plan on releasing updates on a regular basis, otherwise I feel as though the HomePod mini will go the way of the HomePod and there will be no Siri-enabled HomePods available.

The original HomePod will continue to receive updates, but the real question is for how long. I suspect that it may only be a a few years of support left for the original HomePod, in terms of software updates, but I could be wrong.

Source: TechCrunch